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Homura Akemi
Homura is first seen by Madoka in a dream of her fighting a monster in a desolate landscape of skyscrapers. The day after the dream, Homura has transferred to Madoka's school where she gives her ominous warnings. Official Info A smart, graceful, athletically-talented girl. Cool if not chilly, her personality even can even be seen in her posture. Her primary ability is to stop time, all her other abilities and attacks seem to come from non-magical items, such as firearms and bombs. Her time manipulation device can also allow her to travel back in time, act as a shield, and seems to act as a limitless storage facility. She seems to be a magical girl, but there are a lot of mysteries surrounding the way she acts. Her fighting style is also unidentified. *Ms. Aoki’s Design Check: A blunt girl. I tried to let this shine through in her design. Her distinguishing point is her silky long hair. *Magical girl outfit: Homura was designed with her personality and combat style in mind. I found her fascinating right away. (Aoki) *The sharp lines of her upper back and jacket evoke her personality. Overall rather monochromatic. Her black tights have a diamond pattern. *School uniform: She wears black tights in uniform too, leaving her overall feel just like in her magical girl outfit. She gives off the air of a silent beauty. *Regardless of her reasons, Homura'a priority is preventing Madoka from becoming a Mahou Shoujo. Since that is not understandable by other Mahou Shoujos or Madoka, she decided to act alone. *Homura is a magical girl from another timeline, as revealed by Kyubey. She knows that Kyubey is behind a sinister plot, and it mostly involves Madoka turning into a magical girl. *Homura's special ability is revealed to be some kind of time-travel, which explains why she knows so much to the point of knowing exactly when and where certain things will happen. This also may be why she can move at blistering speed. *Her house has a wall display of documents relating to witches. *In episode 9, it was revealed that Homura can stop time. However, anyone she touches while the ability is under effect will not be stopped. **According to Official Scans, as translated by symbv (exact source unknown), here is what Gen Urobuchi said on more of Homura's power: "The weapon that looks like Homura's shield is actually a sand timer. When the flow of the sand is blocked, time is stopped. And when there is no sand on the upper part of the sand timer and then the timer is reverted, one month's worth of time is turned back. But before that stage is reached, only time stopping is possible. This means the special power of Homura is the ability to manipulate one month's time's worth of sand in the sand timer. As for the time passed and then turned back, since it was not the focus in this work I did not think it through very thoroughly. I think you can say that the world split up and became parallel worlds there." *Homura's backstory was revealed in episode 10. She was a transfer student who was recovering from heart disease. Probably due to her lack of confidence, she was targeted by familiars. However, Madoka (who was a Puella Magi at this time) and Mami save her. During Walpurgis Night, Madoka and Mami die. Homura then makes the wish to re-do her meeting with Madoka to prevent her fate. *Along with stopping time, Homura can also reverse time to before her meeting with Madoka. *Homura, while initially ditzy and insecure, has become very independent and strong during her time traveling. Her cold nature is from her determination to save Madoka after having failed in her mission to prevent Madoka from becoming a magical girl several times. *A previous Madoka was the one to task Homura to prevent Madoka from becoming a Puella Magi. *In the current timeline, Homura fails to stop Walpurgis Night. However, since Homura somewhat confessed to Madoka to the time traveling, Madoka creates a new wish to make sure that Homura's efforts weren't in vain. *Homura is the only one that remembers Madoka in the newest timeline. Also, she gains a bow and magical wings. Whether her time-stopping ability remains is unknown. *In the ending, Homura faces off with many demons in a desert. However, her wings become distorted like the barriers of witches. What happens to her is unknown. Observations *She wants to stop Madoka from making a contract with Kyubey *She has much knowledge about Mitakihara Middle School. *Is visibly upset when Madoka uses her last name or honorifics instead of the more intimate "Homura". *She was openly pursuing Kyubey until Kyubey made contact with Madoka. *She appears obsessed with Madoka's happiness and/or survival. *As of Episode 10, it is shown that Homura used to be a very shy and clumsy girl before she became a Puella Magi. Homura met Madoka and Mami when they were saving Homura from a witch, thus the three became friends. At the very end of that timeline, Madoka is killed and Homura asks Kyubey to turn her into a Puella Magi with her wish being "to meet Madoka again, but this time as the one protecting her, not as the one being protected". *She appears to live by herself; her residence only has her name on the nameplate, much like Mami's. In episode 10, when she wakes up in the hospital, no-one is there with her, and she seems to have been filling out the school transfer forms on her own. *She seem to have met Kyubey before, as she refers to him as "Incubator" in Episode 8 shortly after he was shot down by her. She also reveals to "know his true motives". *Her cold attitude was formed through re-living the same timeline multiple times, with the ending always being that Madoka either turned into a witch or died. When that happens, Homura turns back time to the first day of her arrival again. *When Mami asks Homura if she has any other power besides bending time in Episode 10, Homura steals guns, swords etc. from a locker. She hides these weapons inside her shield. Speculations *Homura's wish was to protect Madoka, and since wishes always come true, it should make her immune from death and becoming a witch before saving Madoka. This makes her doomed to be locked in this cycle. In one timeline she was almost successful, but Madoka sacrificed herself for the sake of Homura and caused another restart. **Homura's wish may be interpreted simply as "I want to redo my meeting with Madoka" with the lines about wanting to protect her rather than being protected simply justification for her wish. If this is the case, then the wish has already been fulfilled and there isn't anything to make her immune from death or becoming a witch. Whether or not she has any control over her jumping back in time is unknown. The first few times appear to be automatic, but by the 4th jump back in time she appears to have control over when she jumps, as she spends time talking to Kyubey despite clearly having failed to protect Madoka before walking away and starting again. It may simply have been the first few times were instinctual. **Urobuchi explained that her shield is a sand timer and that it can only be inverted after one month has passed; thus, in Timeline 4, she was presumably waiting for the right moment to invert the timer. *In the first two episodes, Homura appeared to be the antagonist. It was later explained that she only wanted to prevent Madoka becoming a magical girl. She saved Madoka and Sayaka multiple times and may become an ally and/or mentor of Madoka in the future. *She might also wish to prevent Madoka becoming a magical girl because of the risk that she could turn into an overwhelmingly powerful witch. *In Episode 5, Homura saves Sayaka from Kyouko by suddenly manifesting as Kyouko's attack is about to land, somehow moving Sayaka out of the path of the attack. The ability seems to involve massive acceleration rather than teleportation(this because of her power being to turn back/stop time and thus being able to move quickly from one point to another by stopping time temporarily), as she is able to act in a split second. As there are hints that a Puella Magi's powers may relate to her wish (e.g. Sayaka's regeneration), this may be a clue as to Homura's true motives. As of Episode 8 it has been confirmed that Homura's ability has something to do with time. *Per the image in the gallery below, the pipe layout on the corridor wall is completely different after Homura uses her 'teleportation' ability. Assuming this is not a production error, it has been suggested that the ability actually involves magically reconstituting the entire corridor while moving the people in it around. For more information, please refer to the entry on this phenomenon in the Magical Powers speculah. **In the 10th episode we can see Homura with her glasses and duvets, she looks like Hanekawa Tsubasa in Bakemonogatari, which is possessed by a cat during the golden week (Tsubasa Cat arc). *Homura may be a homunculus created by Madoka.[1] **The last line of Magia reads 命を作るのは願い(What creates life is a wish). **'Akemi(アケミ)' and 'alchemy(アルケミー)' reads similar in Japanese. **'Homu' in 'Homura' is also the first four letters in the word 'homunculus'. **Dr. Faust in Goethe's Faust created a homunculus, which has superhuman perception to see through Faust's dream. Mephistopheles could be substituted by Kyubey, and Dr. Faust by Madoka. See Speculah:Madoka Magica and Faust on Shaft's usage of Faust. *Homura might be in possession of the soul gems of magical girls from an alternate timeline, such as the alternate Madoka's. See also Speculah:Homura Identity Swap Theory (though note the identity swap theory has been debunked). *One of the speculations as for why Homura does not tell Madoka upfront of the consequences of becoming a magical girl, is because Madoka might just become one in order to save Homura or Mami. This could also be the reason why she's trying to keep a distance between her and Madoka. *Fans at the beginning expressed shock at Homura's strange choice in weaponry, all Puella Magi are suppose to have magical weapons but not Homura. This is partially correct, Homura's weapon is actually her magical shield which allows her to stop time as well as travel back in time, the shield can also act as a repository for her variety of arsenals and weaponry. **Homura's magical shield can also be used as just that, as during the battle against Walpurgis Night she blocks one of its attacks using it. While hunting Kyubey in episode 1 and 10, she also appears to be firing small blue magical shots that are distinctly different from when she uses a gun. These shots may be much weaker than simply using a gun, which would explain why she doesn't use them against witches. *Homura may actually be Faust, as Faust in the play tries all his might to save Gretchen (Madoka) from dying but in the end she perishes anyways as Mephistopheles (QB) tries to tempt her to form a contract with him. **There's also the fact that in the Goethe version, Faust would only lose his soul if he ever had a moment of perfect happiness that made him wish he could stop time at that moment forever. Homura's power, of course, is to stop time. As such, it's entirely possible that the Homura and Faust parallels will be taken to its logical conclusion: She will have a moment of perfect happiness, she will stop time at that moment, and then she will die or become a witch. However, it should be mentioned that Faust manages to escape Mephistopheles and enter heaven because he found his moment of happiness in helping others, and not in anything Mephistopheles gave him. On the other hand, there is a witch that tries to create heaven on Earth. *Homura may be Walpurgis Night. As Homura's powers involved time manipulation it could very well be that we are seeing a witch version of Homura warped back into the past ironically becoming the very event that has shaped her reason for making a contract. Walpurgis Night has been depicted with clock-like gears underneath her dress. Episode 11 also depicts Walpurgis Night having a primary color of purple, which is also Homura's color. While the end of the series shows Homura losing her shield, after the credits we are shown Homura during an unknown time period, though having Madoka's ribbons, battling. Before Homura starts the fight, she hears Madoka offer words of encouragement as Homura gives up a final smile, which may signal Homura being consumed with despair. The final shot shows the main heroines, overlapped with multiple silhouettes of the heroines, which could allude to the familiars summoned by Walpurgis Night in episode 11, before showing Homura's soul gem. **The alternative interpretation is that the characters spawned from Walpurgis Night are not her familiars, but rather that Walpurgis Night is a set of witches, which are detaching from the main body during that time. ***Sorry, speculation based off raw, after watching translated version, I would like to offer an alternative interpretation of the ending. since madoka negated the rules of the universe to erase witches before they are born, the after credit scene could suggest that it was Homura's final battle as Mami and Kyoko were not present. Madoka hinted that she would see Homura later, but Homura would just need to wait a little longer. It could be that Madoka was offering final words of encouragement before Homura would be consumed with grief and Madoka would come into erase her. *Homura shows some very different powers in episode 12. While this may be a by-product of the new world, it is also possible she always had these powers and simply did not use them in favor of her less magic-consuming time-stopping. **Given the fact that she no longer has her shield on her wrist, it is most likely that her powers have changed altogether. ***Her shield was shown to be completely out of sand during the fight with Walpurgis Night. As we know, the only way for her to get more sand again is to reset the timeline (flip the hourglass). Since the timeline wasn't actually reset by her, even in new timeline, her shield would still be completely out of sand, and therefore, useless as anything but a hunk of steel on her arm. It makes sense she wouldn't use it anymore, then. ****Considering her wish was to protect Madoka, one could believe her shield shows her resolve to protect. Its turning to sand in the Walpurgis Night fight represents her inability (and indeed, her failure) to protect Madoka. When she flips the hourglass, gaining more sand represents the fact she can protect Madoka again. Her not having it in the new timeline shows that she doesn't need to protect anyone anymore. ***As for the source of her new powers, speculations abound; lead amongst them is that she got Madoka's bow from her at the same time that Madoka fixed her Soul Gem and gave her her ribbon. Another theory is that since her wish was to "protect Madoka," and Madoka is now a concept rather than a person, her powers were altered into something similar to what Madoka uses. Yet another theory is that with the universe restarted, Homura made a different wish, and so got different powers. Yet another theory is that Homura was always able to produce a bow; after all, her original concept artwork depicted her with that weapon. She just hadn't figured out how, or alternatively, just hadn't bothered, since stopping time is more efficient. ****My (slightly poorly-founded) theory is that her wish was to know what Madoka was (which explains why she can suddenly tell Kyubey everything) - if that's true, her having a bow represents her bond with the concept of Madoka. Kind of similar to your point. Category:Heroes Category:Allies Category:Girls Category:Character Category:Humans Category:Teenagers Category:Senitinels of Action Category:School Students